Declaration of War

Kiyomi Azumabito wishes Willy Tybur luck before his stage production, then quietly leaves town. Beneath a building behind the stage, Eren orders Reiner to sit, revealing a hand already cut open and ready for transformation, with a residential block full of spectators directly overhead. Falco, who unknowingly delivered Eren's letters, listens in mounting dread.

Willy's play recounts Eldia's bloody empire and the Great Titan War, then discards the official version: the hero Helos was a fabrication, and it was King Karl Fritz himself who conspired with the Tybur family to end the war. The King withdrew to Paradis with as many Eldians as he could, bound his successors with a vow renouncing war, and privately resolved to accept destruction if Marley ever came for the Founding Titan. That safeguard is now void, Willy explains, because the Founder belongs to Eren Jaeger, who carries no royal vow and could trigger the Rumbling of the Wall Titans at will.

Elsewhere in Liberio, a soldier separates the Warriors on false orders, dropping Pieck and Porco Galliard through a trapdoor into a pit built to prevent transformation. Below the stage, Eren asks Reiner why his mother was eaten and why the Wall was broken. Reiner explains the infiltration plan, then breaks down, confessing that his own craving to be a hero pushed the mission forward after Marcel's death, and begs Eren to kill him. Eren instead answers that having lived among his enemies, he now sees Reiner as he sees himself: a person shaped by circumstances with no real choice, then and now. As applause swells above, he takes Reiner's hand, vows to keep advancing until his enemies are destroyed, and transforms. The instant Willy proclaims war on Paradis, the Attack Titan erupts from behind the stage and crushes him.

Eren, holed up beneath the festival with a pre-cut hand, forces Reiner into a conversation timed against Willy Tybur's stage address.

Willy publicly dismantles the Helos myth: Karl Fritz orchestrated the end of the Great Titan War with the Tyburs, exiled his people to Paradis, and shackled the royal line with a vow renouncing war.

Willy names Eren the new global threat, a Founding Titan holder free of the royal vow who could unleash millions of Wall Titans in the Rumbling.

Pieck and Galliard are lured into a containment pit by a disguised soldier, cutting two Warriors out of the coming battle.

Reiner confesses his role in the fall of Wall Maria and pleads for death; Eren declares them alike, refuses, and transforms. Willy's declaration of war ends with the Attack Titan smashing him in front of the assembled world delegates.

The episode adapts the Marley arc chapters Guilty Shadow and Declaration of War, produced by MAPPA with Teruyuki Omine directing and Hiroshi Seko on script; My War opens and Shock closes.

Its lore segment summarizes the Paradis Island Operation commanded by Theo Magath: of the four Warriors sent to retake the Founding Titan (Marcel Galliard, Reiner Braun, Bertholdt Hoover, and Annie Leonhart), only Reiner came home safely, though the captured Jaw Titan was recovered through the prisoner Ymir.

Karina Braun and Mr. Leonhart share a brief scene in the audience, where Annie's father insists his daughter promised to return alive, rejecting any comparison to Bertholdt's fate.